$100 in 1948 is worth $1,074 in 2020,
because prices increased 973.9% over that period, an average of
3.35% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$1,074
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
973.9%
Average inflation rate
3.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,074
Price difference ($100 base)
$974
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1948 → 2020
$1,074
$100 in 2020 → 1948
$9.31
What happened to prices between 1948 and 2020
Between 1948 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 973.9%, which works out to an average of
3.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2020: the 1948 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 72 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 2020 at the same ratio, 10.74: $1,000 becomes
$10,739, and $10,000 becomes $107,390.
Amount in 1948
Value in 2020
$1.00
$10.74
$5.00
$53.70
$10.00
$107
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$537
$100
$1,074
$500
$5,370
$1,000
$10,739
$5,000
$53,695
$10,000
$107,390
$100,000
$1,073,905
$1,000,000
$10,739,046
Inflation by spending category, 1948–2020
Between 1948 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 3503.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 177.8%, against 973.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.35%
$1,074
Medical care
5.10%
$3,603
Food
3.28%
$1,024
Transportation
3.22%
$977
Apparel
1.43%
$278
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–2020 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$161
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$342
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$542
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$715
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$905
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,074
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $413 by
1983, on its way to $1,074 in 2020; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $1,074; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,074 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2020/